Dan Morain: Promise of youth fails to produce at the polls

The headline was true enough, though it was politically incorrect by today's standards: "Pretty Teen Coed Is First Vote Caster."

This newspaper detailed how Joanne Durbin, that "pretty blonde college student," and a half-dozen other newly minted young voters might change the face of democracy.

At 19, Durbin stepped into the voting booth and cast her ballot in a local El Dorado County election, apparently becoming the first Californian to exercise her right under the 26th Amendment, which took effect July 1, 1971, and lowered the voting age to 18 from 21. Before hurrying off to class at Sacramento State, Durbin surveyed the polling place and noted that no one lined up behind her.

"I guess they are just lazy, like the adults," Durbin, smart kid that she was, told the reporter.

Forty-one years later, Joanne Durbin Testerman is a nurse and a grandmother living in Arizona, where she helps care for her aging parents. She has missed only one election since, though she had a good excuse; she was giving birth to twins. But the youth vote has never materialized.

A product of the Vietnam War era, the 26th Amendment was in place for the 1972 presidential election. We know how that turned out. George McGovern, the peace candidate who sought to mobilize young people outraged by the Vietnam War and draft, won Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and nothing else.

People described in the newspaper article are now in their 60s. I found a few of them with help from The Bee's researcher, Pete Basofin. They all had become regular voters and drilled into their kids' heads the need to vote.

"Politics governs the air you breathe," said Melanie Connors, 61, who spent a career as a child protective services worker. "You need to stay informed and involved."

"I have my two cents. I might as well put it in there. I fought for it," added Tony Kessler. A Navy veteran living in San Luis Obispo, he has voted every time since, except for a few years when he was living in Japan. "I thought things were going to start changing. But nothing happened."

Indeed, four decades later, the vast majority of young people still don't vote. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that 19 percent of people 25 or younger are likely voters in this state, compared with 74 percent of voters who are 65 and older.

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Dan Morain: Promise of youth fails to produce at the polls